This post is brought to you by Sheer Ego.
Yes, I am aware it is crass to brag. But when things like this happen, I get all giggly and have to share my elation. Check out Merl Reagle's Crossword puzzle from a few days ago. Now check out the yellow highlighted parts. (Click the puzzle to make it larger)
WHAT?!?!?!
How did a lowly cartoonist without a single magazine cover to his name or even an official fan club make his way into a crossword puzzle? I don't know either, but however he did it, he is thrilled.
You see, cartoonists labor in obscurity for the most part. I've never been (and likely never will be) as famous as Gary Larson, or Garry Trudeau, or Jim Davis, or Charles Schulz. I do what I do and I make a living and I'm happy with that, but every now and then a little rainbow from the pantheon like this crossword puzzle drops into my lap and it's a real kick. It doesn't mean I have "arrived," but it does mean that at least Merl Reagle thinks my name is well known enough to warrant making his readers call up Wikipedia on their computers.
A couple of years ago I was a question on Jeopardy! and it was the highlight of my life. Some people strive for Pulitzers, Oscars, or Nobel Prizes. All I want is to be a puzzle clue every couple of years. That's not so much, is it?
NOTE: Thanks to all the readers who emailed me about this and to Dimension Skipper, who added a link to the above image to his/her comment on this blog. As you can see in his comment (on the previous cartoon) his verification word for posting his comment was "fredness." My dad's name is Fred, which means that I, myself, am the result of an act of fredness.
11 comments:
I don't know if this will make you feel any better (about low self esteem comments) but after looking over the crossword puzzle, I think your name is the only one of the up or downs I would have been sure of (except for the exact spelling, because I can never remember if it's one "r" or two). Anyway, congrats and thanks for sharing the recognition with us, Pizzaro.
FYI, tooting one's own horn is only crass when one is already arrogant to begin with. Dan, you consistently strike me as an exceedingly humble pie kind of guy, and I am thrilled that your genius is getting progressively more recognition. (You've even got my boyfriend hooked on the 'finding things in the panel' trick.)
I only just realized a short while ago that the puzzle might be available for solving online and found it at...
Merl Reagle's site:
www.sundaycrosswords.com
Just click the link there for "this week's puzzle" of course, but obviously that will only work until next sunday's puzzle comes out—at which time the 7/19 one will still be available by subsequently clicking back through the archive links week by week from the current puzzle. The archive itself appears to only go back three weeks, so after that the "Bizarro" puzzle will likely disappear forever.
I took the time to fill in all my answers online and then do a screen capture of the result with 61D highlighted. The resulting image is much cleaner than the scan of my original scribbled-in-by-hand puzzle grid.
Congratulations on the worldwide notoriety and accolades that result from being a famous crossword puzzle and quiz show answer!
Magazine covers
http://www.comics.org/covers.lasso?SeriesID=8306
http://www.comics.org/covers.lasso?SeriesID=21433
"without a single magazine cover to his name"
http://www.comics.org/covers.lasso?SeriesID=8306
http://www.comics.org/covers.lasso?SeriesID=21433
"without a single magazine cover to his name"
http://www.comics.org/covers.lasso?SeriesID=8306
http://www.comics.org/covers.lasso?SeriesID=21433
In the late '80s and early '90s, in any newspaper I found around me, your cartoon regularly featured right next to Gary Larson's. I still vaguely associate the two as natural side-by-side features: not identical in style, but similar enough to set them apart from the vast bulk of the "funny" pages.
It was with great surprise that I learned just a couple of years ago that you're not actually as well known as Gary! But you ought to be.
Hmmm, I don't know if you're so much an act of fredness, as an exemplar of, uh, demi-fredness?
I've only recently (and barely) caught some local Six Flags Great Adventure commercials that happened to use the word Bizarro. I saw the ad again tonight and paid closer attention to hear them reference the "Bizarro Coaster."
Sure enough their old Medusa Coaster is now known as Bizarro. There's another Bizarro Coaster at Six Flags New England too. Both are mentioned in this brief Theme Park Insider piece...
The New Bizarro Coaster-- Same But Different
And here's a Wikipedia page on the Great Adventure one (NJ).
I'm sure you got a nice fat check for licensing the name, right?
And if they have pieces of pie, eyeballs, UFO aliens, and dynamite hidden along the coaster path then they're just blatantly ripping you off if you didn't license it.
here's something that might make you feel even better, although i know they haven't named any insects after you, yet.
You are well and truly part of popular culture. Congratulations :)
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